The New World Of Work: Time To Think Virtually

Forget thinking outside the box. American business needs a new slogan: think outside the office.

Working virtually isn’t new, but it’s growing rapidly. By 2016, just four years from now, 63 million Americans will be working this way, up sharply from 2010′s 34 million, according to Forrester Research.

Now we need the U.S. Small Business Administration to support and jump-start the creation of even more virtual work opportunities to serve what Forrester says will have a “far-reaching” impact on the economy.

Private enterprise should keep backing the shift to virtual business and ramp up their efforts. Managers at large, small, and medium-sized companies should emulate Carnival, AAA, Walgreens, JetBlue, United Healthcare and other major companies, which are already helping lead the charge into the virtual workplace.

Global economic conditions are also speeding the change: one of the quickest ways to cut costs is to reduce the size of your office or even eliminate it completely.

One of the silver linings of the tough employment situation is that it’s inspiring more workers and their bosses to change the way they work. In the wake of a slowly recovering economy that’s seen first timers facing yet another challenging job market, it’s little wonder that many recent college graduates are already giving up on brick-and-mortar jobs and switching to virtual work.

Here’s why more virtual work opportunities are needed:

We need to serve a workforce that’s changed since the Great Recession and is about to change even more. Since the economic meltdown of 2008, the traditional model of work has become a lose-lose scenario for both employers, who are facing changing business needs, and employees, who may want to work nontraditional hours and don’t always live near their employers.

With virtual workers, companies are able to operate with zero unnecessary overhead, often saving over 30%. For example, instead of needing vast amounts of office space, Axiom Law, the largest and fastest growing provider of managed legal services to Fortune 500 companies, has a virtual workforce of over 900 attorneys.

Increasingly, workers are marching to their own tune, based on their individual needs and desires. Virtual workers, including those who are their own business owners, are often more accountable, take on more responsibility, and are more passionate about their work than brick and mortar workers, which enables them to achieve better performance.

But just saying more jobs are needed isn’t enough, especially in today’s economy. To help this succeed:

The SBA should use part of the budget it already has for small business toward specifically boosting and supporting virtual business owners. The point is that we need to start sending some funds already aimed at small businesses in this direction.

Company managers should create their own personal approaches toward going increasingly virtual. No one-size strategy will work for everyone. If you’re a supervisor, think about how you can build flexibility into your workplace – and the advantages of doing so.

The SBA should consider helping legitimize virtual work by showing off various models of how to work more efficiently and productively via the virtual method. If we give business managers choices of what works, then more of them will decide to make the switch.

And the government should do more to publicize and alert us about Internet scams, fraud, and fake work-at-home schemes by creating a Virtual Work Hotline. Let’s expose the hoaxers as fast as they appear and do whatever’s needed to shut them down.

People who scoff about working virtually remind me of those who laughed at Electronic Data Systems when Ross Perot started talking about outsourcing in 1962. Eventually, outsourcing dramatically change the world enterprise computing.

Virtual work has the potential to be similarly world changing. The virtualization of business is like outsourcing on steroids: not only is it highly efficient, but it is probably the most advanced and evolved economic system yet devised.

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As a virtual worker for the past 17 years, I will note that an incredibly important issue is frequently overlooked. With low expense and high bandwidth of remote communications and digital material transfer, virtual workers are in competition with everyone in their field–around the world! This will have enormous repercussions for business organization, wages, training, etc. As virtual work expands, the nature of work must change.

As noted, I have worked virtually for 17 years, with most clients in the US. But I was in New Zealand!

Virtual work requires marketing, just like any business. I operate as an author/analyst/journalist, for analyst firms, publishers and corporate clients looking for white papers, brochures, cases, manuals, and the like. I avoid the online job shops, as the payment there tends to be virtually nil, and I try to build long term relationships, where possible. I built my own CRM and project tracking systems, and spend some time every month canvassing.

Overall, it helps to have a stellar resume, and lots of experience. I list projects completed as a marketing tool. I have an interactive database of over 1000 of them at http://bjdooley.com/recent.htm (recent being past 15 years or so!). I have written for almost all of the major analyst firms, written 7 books, etcetera.

If you are going into the world of work, be compared to compete against the world! You need to find your niche, demonstrate extra competence (since you are not local), and be prepared to adapt rapidly, both personally and professionally. Become a work ninja, with a track record of getting difficult jobs done well.

Arise.com is real. It does cost a little money to start(need to pay to incorporate your company, some certification classes, PC, Dedicated phone), but we do not make money certifying people, but we can lose alot if you do not go all the way through to answering calls for our clients. Be aware not everyone makes it through the process as we (and our customers) only want the best performers.

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Maybe I’m unique, but I’m the owner of a virtual businesses that employs 18 people around the country and we were supported in late 2010 by a significant loan from the SBA. I did submit an extensive business plan that I worked on for 5 months, and I had the benefit of an amazing bank officer that pushed through the loan. That being said, I’m not sure how rare we are in that regard.

What I can share is that being a 6 year old virtual company has forced us to figure out how to maintain an amazing culture while not benefitting from an office space. Of our 18 team members, every one of them is an A player. As a virtual company, you learn how to hire and promote people you can trust. And every one of them loves working for us. They appreciate the autonomy, enjoy the responsibility, and work hard to make a difference in the lives of our customers.

Of course we use powerful software like Basecamp and Trello and Harvest to keep projects on track and moving forward, but we also use a private internal Facebook page to give everyone a place to hang out online and share victories and stories in what we call “The Break Room.”

Because of the flexibility of being virtual, we employ a number of stay at home moms who LOVE working 20 – 25 hours a week for us and still being able to spend time with their children (they are highly organized and highly educated!). And we encourage our staff to live their lives and to travel as long as they get their work done. One of our key players just got back from working in Australia for 6 weeks. While we had some minor struggles with time zones, the work did not suffer. Our relationship with that employee suffered and that highlighted the need for a certain number of touch points throughout the week. As a virtual company, you find a magical number of these touch points between employees that makes it all hum and you have to protect those. Lesson learned!

In person is important at times, too. Our executive team meets quarterly in person for 3 day retreats and this October we’ll host our first all staff retreat for four days in the mountains. We also meet our clients in person whenever possible. Culture requires more intention for a virtual company, and our staff have all learned to contribute to and protect that culture. That has created momentum and growth that is palpable.

Thanks for the great piece. If anyone has questions about how to run a successful virtual company, please feel free to reach out.

Oh so true, I have worked from home for 12 years and have also hired home based employees. It is a shame that more employers fail to offer the flexibility that working from home brings.

All of my employees are working from home and loving it. Productivity is through the roof and turn over is nada.

Twelve years ago, I left my lucrative job as a college professor so I could stay home with my kids. It is the best decision I ever made. I do freelance work with everything from basic data entry to article writing. If you are looking for a legit, free, no scam, no mlm work from home job, check out my free website the “Legitimate Online Job Directory” at www.LegitimateOnlineJobDirectory.com

I’ve been remote working now for the last 3 years from 6 different countries. I believe remote working offers many benefits for both employer and employee. For the employer, having a remote working policy means that you extend your staffing options outside of the area immediately surrounding your office. More options for a job generally leads to higher quality. For the employee, remote working brings a new sense of freedom, we can design the life we want and create our own personal work/life balance.

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